LETTER: Government is to blame

Love your iPhone? It was made in a Chinese sweatshop by what is essentially slave labor. Foxconn’s iPhone workers face 16-hour days, six days a week, for about $244/month. They live in worker dorms near the factory. Room and board takes most of their wages, leaving little to send home to their families back in the provinces.

These Foxconn workers are barely getting by, despite the awful hours. They have no life and little hope. Foxconn addressed this problem by installing suicide nets under the windows of the worker dorms.

Our government drove manufacturing our of this country. We are reaping the whirlwind of lower tax revenues and chronic unemployment.

In his book, “Sand in the Gears — How Public Policy Has Crippled American Manufacturing,” Andrew O. Smith discusses six areas where our government has created a climate hostile to manufacturing. These six areas are: the tax system, health care, the legal system, workers’ compensation, government regulations, and labor policy.

Smith explains how these policies have added burdensome costs with few benefits.

The “progressives” in our government, as well as in academia and the mainstream media, have campaigned for decades to drive manufacturing out of this country.

U.S. manufacturers had no choice but to become importers of Chinese products or go out of business. They chose to remain as part of the supply chain.

U.S. retailers had no choice but to stock their shelves with Chinese products. Although the brand names are still familiar, the box says “Made in China.”

Gone are the manufacturing jobs that would support a middle-class family on 40 hours a week. Gone are the high-paying service jobs that supported manufacturing.

Our young people graduate from high school or college with few opportunities and an uncertain future. They should thank our government for that.